OMG, Corwood! That's really scary! I haven't read much about what happened, just...that it happened. Are you freaking out? Is your family? I know when things happen somewhere I've been I'm always like "I know that place, I've been there" and it's not usually anyplace THAT small/meaningful/homey or anything THAT upsetting. Eeesh. I hope everyone you know is safe. What an awful thing.

Yikes, Cor! I felt similarly when the local bowling alley in my homwetown was the site of a spree killing back when I was in high school. It was like that doesn't happen here!

(Of course, a guy was shot dead in my parking lot this year, and my car was behind crime tape and right opposite the victim, and that doesn't seem at all out of place. WTF, brain?)

Wow, Corwood. I am so sorry.

Most of the crummy rentals we lived in when I was a kid had wood paneling -- you don't have to paint it between tenants.

I have looked at crummy rentals with wood paneling, but I couldn't take it. Although one guy told me that if I could figure out a way to paint the paneling, I was welcome to do it!

Whoa, Corwood. That's insane. And scary.

That would be unsettling as hell, Corwood. I can't imagine.

Because it belonged in a separate post:

Happy Birthday, tommyrot!!

***

Also, I just at a bunch of bacon, and now I'm going to go see Watchmen. I mean, those things are unrelated, except for being hungry and it's a long movie. So, not unrelated, actually. Bacon was because of last night, though.

The gifted program at my high school didn't kick in till I was a Junior. None of the smart kids from my class were in it, so they must have decided we were too far along or something. Damn, I was jealous of them.

I completely skated through high school and college. If I paid attention, I did pretty well. It got to the point where if it didn't come easily, I didn't bother. Damn you, reactionary "Girls don't really need math!" school administrators! I hate seeing anything above basic algebra as an utterly foreign language. I have a better shot of understanding written Slovenian or something, because I can see the connections to words in other languages. (Written Scandinavian languages or non-Roman alphabets? Forget it.)

I was reading when I was around 3. My mom claims I was born reading. She read to us for hours a day, but now doesn't understand why I have all these books. Anyway, when I went to kindergarten, there were pictures of the alphabet on the wall and the teachers said things like "This is Mr. A." I thought some terrible force was making my parents lock me up with crazy people.

Dude! Yeah, I remember sticking my hand up and waving it on the first day of kindergarter when the teacher was all "Now does anyone know what the alphabet is?" and proceeding to machine-gun it out and the teacher being all "Uh, that's...right, but let's take it one letter at a time. The alphabet isn't just a song, dear; it'll help you learn to make words and then you can READ!"

I was all, BWHWA? And it proceeded this way at that school until my 3rd grade teacher -- Mrs. Howren, you bitch, I still hate you -- accused me of lying about having finished some baby book we were assigned. She wouldn't even ask me me questions about it -- she humiliated me in front of the whole class, told me no one could have read it that fast, I was lying to get attention, and that I should never contradict her. I had to sit at the front of the class and be stared at for the rest of the day.

My parents, god love 'em, had a come-to-Jesus talk with her and the principal the next day. She ignored me utterly for the rest of the year, except when she was slyly mean to me. And she knew the other kids were picking on me, and encouraged it. Bitchface.

I guess you are why the name of the town seemed vaguely familliar, then, Corwood. I can't imagine...

One of the odd things at my high school was that the kids in the G&T program and the kids in the Honors and AP classes didn't have a lot of overlap. I don't know how normal that is, but I remember it striking me as odd. I didn't qualify for G&T, not even close as I recall, but I was in all the advanced classes after moving from the remedial to the advanced track, literally overnight, in middle school.